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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

thanks ponce. I'll give it a go. if it works just fine that will be one less step for the end user to take :-)
I may be a little slow as it is the 3.2.27 kernel, and i already have the 3.6.1 installed, so I might start fresh on a new sdcard which will take me a few days. i'll edit this post with the result.
edit: well, now you have updated the 3.6.1 to 3.6.6 I think I'll try that one first :-)
edit2: there seems to be a problem in the installer image - mount.cifs is not present so you cannot install from samba file server.
I have a separate problem with my monitor and hdmi where the screen blanks, which makes it very hard to do the install. If only the raspberrypi had a vga socket. :-(
edit3: the system boots as far as showing a raspberry icon, and then just hangs. I'll try your 3.2.27 installer and see how that goes instead

comment. the fat partition with the 3.6.6 installer was way too small. I had to resize it before I could install the kernel boot package, because it was full.

Last edited by timsoft; 11-23-2012 at 05:14 PM.

Click here to see the post LQ members have rated as the most helpful post in this thread.

I'm testing it now running kernel and firmware on an unit and doing a fresh install of slackwarearm-14.0 on a 16 Gb SD card mounted on another unit: formatting the root filesystem (15 Gb) during the installation is taking hours (it's normal), but it seems to work fine.

EDIT: I'm installing the packages now (via NFS).
EDIT2: Installation finished successfully, rebooted and started xfce, razorqt and lxde (the fastest and less resource hungry of the three) on it.

Hi All,
I'm rebuilding my RaspberryPi, and I want to have the root fs on an external disk (via USB). I wrote the SlackwareARM installer image to the SD card, copied the SlackwareARM tree to my disk, and installed.
During the installation, I selected the partitions in the disk as my root and swap filesystems.

The installer even wrote the right root fs option to the cmdline.txt file (although I made an XFS filesystem but the rootfs option was still set to ext4), but the system is not booting.

When I turn the Pi on, it says "Waiting on root fs /dev/sda1", and I can see USB-related messages in the console, telling me that the drive is recognized. But at the same time, it looks like the partitions on the external drive are not being read, because the booting process stops at that point. If I disconnect & connect again, I can see the messages telling me about it, so the OS is not hung.

Any way I can debug this? I assume I don't have logs, given that the root fs is not mounted at that point. I read something similar in the RPi forums, but the person asking there had no replies.
I guess I could install in a different way and only move certain directories to the disk, and mount them later in the boot process.

I just wanted to say thanks Ponce, your installer worked perfectly last night!

Also, a tip for anyone who stumbles upon this thread in the future, probably the easiest way of providing an installation source for the Slackware installer is to rsync a local mirror to your computer and then run "python -m SimpleHTTPServer" in the root directory of your local mirror. This loads up a simple no frills HTTP server on port 8000 that you can use to install Slackware. You simply tell the installer to use "YOUR.IP.ADD.RESS:8000" and you're golden.

When I turn the Pi on, it says "Waiting on root fs /dev/sda1", and I can see USB-related messages in the console, telling me that the drive is recognized. But at the same time, it looks like the partitions on the external drive are not being read, because the booting process stops at that point. If I disconnect & connect again, I can see the messages telling me about it, so the OS is not hung.

I have discovered a new thing (that I should have tried before): If I use a pendrive instead of my SATA adapter (external HD) then the partitions are immediately recognized. May this be an issue of drivers? maybe the way the partitions are layed out on the disk? I know sometimes the system takes relatively long time to mount partitions on an external HD, but I waited for around 15 minutes and the partitions were not mounted. I tried several adapters and I get the same problem with all of them.

I have discovered a new thing (that I should have tried before): If I use a pendrive instead of my SATA adapter (external HD) then the partitions are immediately recognized. May this be an issue of drivers? maybe the way the partitions are layed out on the disk? I know sometimes the system takes relatively long time to mount partitions on an external HD, but I waited for around 15 minutes and the partitions were not mounted. I tried several adapters and I get the same problem with all of them.

Any suggestions?

Regards.

Does the external hd have its own power supply? (I'm not even sure if they make SATA to USB adapters without their own power supplies)

The R-Pi's USB ports don't provide enough power for my external hd (which doesn't have its own power supply), so I need a powered USB hub to use it.

Does the external hd have its own power supply? (I'm not even sure if they make SATA to USB adapters without their own power supplies)

Well, I did some more testing with adapters borrowed from friends. All of them have their own power supply, as I'm using a 3.5" HD.

-> Adapter 1 (Maxtor OneTouch) doesn't boot. Correctly identified after the system is up.
-> Adapter 2 (mine, generic, no brand) Doesn't work. I think this one might even be dangerous to the Pi, because the Pi partially turns on (green led on, but not booting) when I plug it into the Pi's USB port. Also correctly identified and usable after the system is up.
-> Adapter 3 (Orico, SATA to eSATA/USB) boots OK.

I have one more to test, that eventually I could swap with mine. But it seems to be a matter of adapter quality.
I'm reinstalling the OS anyway because I formatted the drive as XFS and I think only EXT4 is supported (boot failed with Adapter 3 after loading the partitions).
Also, I don't know if it can be part of the problem, but as I created the swap partition first at the end of the disk, cfdisk put sda2 before sda1 in the disk partition table, and I want to change that as well.

Be careful not to deliver power into your Pi via the data usb connection. Power into my 1st Pi via a usb data cable from a powered usb hub fried it.

I ended up grabbing a cutter and removing the path from the PCB to the VCC pin of the USB port (on the adapter, not the Pi, of course). No damages to the data paths, and no more +5V from the Pi. I wonder what the hell was the chinese guy that designed it thinking...

Quote:

Originally Posted by manwichmakesameal

Hey timsoft, did you ever resolve this? I have the same problem with the installer img from Dec. 6.

I had the same issue, and I think it is related to the console argument on cmdline.txt. The default provided by the installer didn't work for me, but I was able to see the output again once I changed it to tty1.

I had the same issue, and I think it is related to the console argument on cmdline.txt. The default provided by the installer didn't work for me, but I was able to see the output again once I changed it to tty1.